


Steady Thy Laden Head Across A Brook;

by number_of_the_beast_is_666



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, Dark Magic, Geraskier, M/M, Mentioned Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Radiation Poisoning (kinda), can be read as friendship i guess, magic effects you like radiation, slightly whumpy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:49:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22776676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/number_of_the_beast_is_666/pseuds/number_of_the_beast_is_666
Summary: After a fight with a strong (and homicidal) witch, Geralt just wants to sleep off the remaining effects of her dark magic.Instead, he has to run.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 4
Kudos: 67





	Steady Thy Laden Head Across A Brook;

**Author's Note:**

> Magic has the same effects as radiation and will cause radiation poisoning. Humans are more susceptible to it than sorcerers, mutants, mages or witches.
> 
> Based off of the Witcher Netflix series because I'm a broke bitch and books/games cost money.  
> Title from John Keats' "To Autumn"  
> Comments and kudos would be appreciated.

Geralt was pulled from the beginnings of sleep by his travelling companion, the gentle melody from the bard’s lute halting and his voice breaking the newfound silence of the forest.  
“Can you taste metal?” Jaskier asked, eyebrows furrowed in incredulity, pausing strumming his lute for a second to question.  
This puzzled the Witcher momentarily, taking in a deep breath, and then it hit him. Geralt could feel himself choking on the air. Taste metal? Geralt could taste blood, hot and metallic, overwhelmingly intense. The smell of magic. But wrong. Too strong, too dark, too heavy. He was gagging on it, fighting for breath, finding himself unable to. It was as thick as flesh, and tasted like it too. Out. Get out. He needed to get out.

He stood from his bedroll, stumbling as he made his way through the thicket. He choked raggedly, feeling hot liquid run down his chin. Coughing up blood already? Bad. Very much so.  
“Geralt? Geralt! You can’t go running off without me!”  
Geralt could hardly hear the bard calling after him, blood rushing in his ears, passing foliage grabbing at him, pulling him deeper into the forest.  
He broke out of the dense woods, appearing in clearing, bright with the light of the full moon.  
The Witcher dropped to his knees, panting harshly, blood being expelled from his mouth with every breath.

What the fuck? They were just resting, dozing lightly - after that particularly tricksy and tiresome witch - and now they were being… Attacked? This didn’t seem like a witch, not a normal one at least. It was suffocating and strong dark magic. Like Yennefer. Would she have done this? No, she had no reason to do something so recklessly dangerous. Not something that could have such a terrible effect on people other than Geralt. Others. Jaskier. _Jaskier._

The bard came out of the trees, pitching forward over the uneven ground, staring at Geralt, eyes wide and mouth hanging open.  
“What the hell, Geralt? You just ran off!” Jaskier was yelling now, his voice pitched up, sounding something akin to a whine. He started at Geralt’s appearance, taking in the blood and the rapidly paling Witcher.  
“Is that- is that blood? I thought you said you killed the witchy lady?” Jaskier’s voice softened, approaching Geralt with wary eyes. Putting a hand on the Witcher’s neck and tilting his head up to see his face.

Dark veins running beneath his eyes, Geralt refused to meet Jaskier’s eyes. His were black, reflecting the moonlight in the uncovered glade, the surrounding skin peeling and blistering.  
“Oh, Gods, _Geralt_.”  
Geralt pulled away from Jaskier’s grasp, breathing heavily and spitting out mouthfuls of saliva and blood, still on his hands and knees. The bard stood up straight, glancing around to check for an immediate threat, a habit picked up from travelling with the Witcher.  
“Dark-” Geralt started, getting cut off with a wet cough, “dark magic. It’s strong. Very. We need to leave before I’m incapacitated.” He got to his feet, taking shaky steps back to camp.

Jaskier nodded vigorously, and Geralt could see him thinking, slow compared to his usual way of taking everything in stride. Fuck. Confusion. A bad sign.  
Dark magic affected everything, but humans quicker than sorcerers and mutants. Geralt must still be weakened from the earlier fight with the witch, so there was a quicker onset of symptoms. But Jaskier would fall victim to it even quicker than Geralt.  
He pulled Jaskier along with him, branches tearing at their clothes as they raced through the underbrush, arriving back at camp where Geralt started wildly gathering their belongings up. He strapped their bedrolls to Roach’s saddlebags, hands nearly trembling, held still by only sheer force of will alone.

Jaskier was standing idly by the edge of the camp, staring at the stuttering remains of their fire. He seemed entranced by the embers, not looking away, even when a bead of blood rolled down from his nostril, trickling down his chin and staining the neck of his blue silk doublet.  
“Jaskier.” The bard startled, looking up at Geralt, a dopey smile splitting the blank expression on his face. It disappeared quickly as he seemed to remember the situation at hand. Dark magic and possible death, if they didn’t get out of here.

“We’re leaving.” Geralt pulled himself up onto Roach, muscles heaving and head spinning at the effort. Jaskier moved to walk away from the camp, stumbling like a drunkard.  
Geralt let out a quiet sigh, slipping back off his saddle and over to Jaskier, grabbing his shoulder, seizing his shoulder roughly and making the bard wince. There wasn’t time to feel bad, though, as if he was bleeding and getting confused already, it had to be strong, Extremely so.  
Geralt felt sick from the amount of blood he was swallowing down, and his head was pounding so hard his vision was pulsating.

He dragged Jaskier over to Roach, hoisting himself up and pulling Jaskier up in front of him. The sudden harsh movement snapped Jaskier out of his stupefaction.  
“Geralt, what’s happening? I- I can’t think. And your face. Your skin. The bloo-” Jaskier was cut off when Geralt leaned to the side and retched, blood and bile coming up. Jaskier paled at this, as a Witcher was rarely made that sick.

“Leaving. Back to the stream we passed.” With that, he nudged the horse onwards, turning back to the path they came from. He hurried Roach on until they were cantering back through the woods, making for a stream they had passed in the early evening. Running water would help.  
If they could get out of the thick of it and clean off, they should be fine, Geralt would heal and Jaskier hadn’t shown any permanently damaging effects.

The trees blocked any wind the pair might have felt, much to Geralt’s disappointment, as he felt hot all over, and where Jaskier’s back pressed against his chest, it felt like he was burning.  
His limbs were heavy where they wrapped around Jaskier and loosely held onto the reins, his head weighed down with an intoxicating sort of pain. He felt a sharp stab of pain and then his vision blacked out momentarily, leaving him blind and disoriented.

Jaskier, even in his unclear mental state, felt the Witcher behind him shift in his saddle and start to fall, causing Jaskier to grab at Geralt’s clothes to stop him.  
Jaskier let out a strangled cry as he got pulled back by his bulk, said Witcher’s arm grabbing at Jaskier’s neck. Geralt righted himself groggily, still holding Jaskier but now an arm wrapped tightly around his waist, keeping himself in the saddle.  
He kicked at Roach’s flank, urging her on to the stream. Not long now. It couldn’t be.  
If his tongue didn’t feel so dry and swollen in his mouth, he’d try to encourage her. He’d just buy her apples and sugar cubes in apology at the next village they came across. If they got to one.

Jaskier was silent, quieter than Geralt had ever heard him whilst the bard was conscious. Another bad sign. Jaskier only went quiet when hell was freezing over, and sometimes even not then.  
He nudged Jaskier lightly in the ribs, leaning into him to hear if there was a response. He didn’t hear any reply, but he did hear the bard’s heartbeat speed up. Good. Better that than have it slow down. He focused on that, keeping that on his mind to keep himself from throwing in the towel and settling down to die in the underbrush. The thought that he isn't just responsible for himself any more.

He felt the stream before he saw or heard it, being to focused on Jaskier to notice.  
Geralt felt the cold water splash on his calves, then heard the burbling and splashing, the clear cool air refreshing in his state of delirium.  
He practically fell off of Roach, into the shallow water, tugging Jaskier off after him. Jaskier didn’t find his feet before hitting the ground, Geralt grasping him by the shoulders to stop him from falling into the water.

“Take off your clothes. They’re contaminated.” Geralt ordered, undoing his trouser laces and tugging his shirt over his head, throwing it to the banks of the river. He took off his boots and braies, tossing them to the river bank before wading deeper into the river, goose flesh appearing on his skin at contact with the frigid water.  
He turned back to Jaskier who was standing once again idle, staring at Geralt.

“Dark magic clings to you. Wash it off. We’ll do our clothes and Roach next.” Jaskier didn’t move whatsoever.  
Geralt sighed and moved back over to him, approaching him cautiously, like one might approach a skittish colt. Jaskier’s eyes were wide and watering, skin pinkened from the magic. His nose appeared to have stopped bleeding, with blood congealing on his upper lip. His shoulders were tensed, arms held stiffly at his sides.

“Clothes. Contaminated.” Geralt gave a brief warning before starting to unbutton the pale blue doublet, the large hands of the Witcher being uncharacteristically gentle as he did it.  
He discarded the doublet to the pile of his clothes, moving onto the lacing of Jaskier’s shirt. Jaskier was still staring at Geralt. Once his shirt was off, Geralt removed Jaskier’s woollen breeches, clinically and without any sign of awkwardness, then shoes and long socks.  
He pulled Jaskier into deeper water by the arm, holding onto his undershirt, wetting it and using it to clean off his face.  
Geralt submerged himself in the bitterly cold water, coming back up for air and then dunking himself again.  
He could feel his skin sting, could feel the tender skin almost crackle when exposed to the water. He couldn’t taste blood much any more, just the residual from his own body.

Jaskier cupped his hands, splashing his face with water, wincing at the sting and shivering at the freezing water. Geralt moved over to him, taking note of a smattering of bruises, browns and greens mottling the bard’s skin. Jaskier’s shoulder had a large patch of blue on his shoulder, the same one Geralt had grabbed to get him on horseback. Fuck.

This led Geralt’s attention to Jaskier’s throat and waist where there were blooming bruises. The logical part of Geralt’s brain tells him that magic weakens humans, enough that they bruise like apples picked in the early morning.  
But that small, nagging part of his brain was screaming at him. Sirens ringing, alarm bells sounding out. _How could you hurt him like that, the one person that saw him as a person, and not a mutant or freak or monster._

Jaskier crouched in the river, dropping under the water, rising and staring down at the water. He froze at the first touch of a wet cloth, relaxing when he realized it was just his Witcher.  
Geralt cleaned Jaskier’s back, moving down his long arms and nimble hands, his neck and hair. He passed the shirt to Jaskier to let him wash his own legs and privates, moving downstream to scour the magic off of himself.  
When he got to his hair, he ran his hands through it in the water, pulling out several clumps of long, pale hair. That was… New.

“Drink. Don’t worry if you get sick - it’ll do no harm now that we’re out of there. Just your body trying to clean itself out.” Geralt called out to Jaskier, speaking over his shoulder, leaving the bard some privacy to clean up. He felt better already, even if dehydrated, bringing water up to his mouth and drinking like a man trekking through the desert. Water had never tasted so sweet.

Witchers had a, sometimes unsettling, ability to bounce back quicker than many, and Geralt could not have been gladder for it than now. Jaskier was human, and would have been affected more harshly and would take longer to recuperate. Keeping himself alive was enough of a task; keeping a healthy human even more so of one. A sickly human and a sickly Witcher? Very tough indeed.

“So… It only took dark magic poisoning to get you to undress me? I should have hired a witch myself.” He spun around to find Jaskier closer to him than he was before, a wide grin splitting his face and eyes bright with mischief. Geralt couldn’t help but smile at the sight; his before very sullen bard now cracking jokes and smiling wide.

“Was that a smile I saw on the great White Wolf’s face? Did the Butcher of Blaviken just smile at a joke I made? Well, now something _really_ must be wrong. Tell me, Geralt, just what did that magic do to your head?” Jaskier advanced, tipping his head back to look into Geralt’s eyes, those that were so recently dark were now back to bright gold, and beaming up at him.  
“It did nothing to my head, bard, just taught me where my priorities lie.”


End file.
